


Waiting

by dilangley



Category: Mighty Ducks (Movies)
Genre: Adam goes pro, Charlie owns Hans' store, Chicago Blackhawks, Gordon Bombay is still their surrogate father, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 05:39:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12550380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilangley/pseuds/dilangley
Summary: They stood there, separated by adult years they had let slip away from them, countless moments in each other’s lives unaccounted for, unknown, regretted.Charlie wondered why he hadn’t made the trip to Chicago before now. He wondered if the only reason Adam had finally asked him was because of Mr. Banks dying. He wondered if the only reason he had come was because Mr. Banks had died. Adulthood made it too easy to put off things that mattered. Right now, they put off breaking the silence.But as always, Charlie reached out first, stuck out his hand. “It’s good to see you.”





	Waiting

Charlie might have let five years slip by without seeing his friend, but he could still read his movements on the ice. He watched Adam work his way down toward the empty goal, shifting a little harder to the left than the right. Charlie realized he was counting Adam’s touches in his head: one, two, three… his brain rang out with the word “Shot!” the exact instant let it loose. It rocketed into the goal, all power and no precision, unusual.

Aloud, Charlie only said, “What’d you do to your ankle, Banksy?”

Adam’s head shot up, his body curving away from his gaze in an effortless backwards arc, the control of his momentum on ice completely instinctual. Just seeing that level of ease and control made Charlie want to step on the ice himself, and he might have taken the skates out of his bag if it hadn’t been for Adam’s ankle. Charlie needed that question answered.

“Conway.” Adam turned the name into a greeting, warm and sincere. “You’re a day early.”

“I wasn’t just coming to see you play and then leaving. I figured I’d at least make a weekend of it,” Charlie said. He pointed now to the right ankle. “Don’t change the subject on me. What’d you do to your ankle?”

“Nothing, man. It’s good. I came down on it wrong earlier in practice.” His face had no tension lines from lying, so Charlie relaxed. “I can’t believe you can see a little twinge like that. You always had a coach’s eye.”

“That’s just a nice thing for a hotshot player like you to say.”

Adam stroked over to the side of the rink and clambered out. They stood there, separated by adult years they had let slip away from them, countless moments in each other’s lives unaccounted for, unknown, regretted. 

Charlie wondered why he hadn’t made the trip to Chicago before now. He wondered if the only reason Adam had finally asked him was because of Mr. Banks dying. He wondered if the only reason he had come was because Mr. Banks had died. Adulthood made it too easy to put off things that mattered. Right now, they put off breaking the silence.

But as always, Charlie reached out first, stuck out his hand. “It’s good to see you.”

“I’m glad you came. Fulton and Portman were here last week.”

The image of them came to mind, twin big dark brothers, still friends after all these years. 

“Guy and Connie brought the baby to a game a couple weeks ago.”

Charlie couldn’t imagine the couple without smiles on their faces; he imagined their new mistake wearing one too, a matching set of happiness.

“Coach is coming this weekend. You know he makes a few games every year.”

Finally, Charlie took the shot that hurt, right to the gut. Of course he knew that Gordon Bombay came to a few of Adam’s games every year. More than once Coach had called him up, asked him to come along in that knowing voice, and Charlie had rebuffed him with worn, tired excuses.

“It’s always good to see him,” Charlie said.

“I got your seats together.”

“Good call.” Charlie smiled now, wanting to end the stiffness that had turned their mouths into straight lines. He deliberately forced his up at the corners. “You have to do things with your team tonight or can you go get a pizza with me? It’s my first time in Chicago.”

Adam smiled again too. It spread slowly from the sides of his mouth to the center where it parted his lips, revealing straight, white teeth. His teeth really were much too nice to belong to a hockey player.

“Deep-dish pizza it is then.” 

 

\---------------------------

 

After an hour at the table, Charlie knew that Adam had eaten a salad, half a piece of pizza, and gone through two glasses of water, no lemon. He knew Adam had never been one to shovel food in like the rest of the Ducks, but even so, this eating seemed light. His leg was jiggling under the table too, his left, not his right. Charlie wondered again about that supposed twinge.

Only when Adam asked him if he wanted another piece did he realize he hadn’t counted his own food intake. He quickly subtracted the remaining slices from the total and determined that he had eaten two. What the heck. A third sounded good. He accepted it and started to dig in while counting his beer bottles on the table, also two.

“How’s the store?” Adam asked. 

Charlie still thought of it as Hans’ store, and he still couldn’t quite believe that he owned it. His mother couldn’t quite believe he had taken an Eden Hall prep school education and turned it into monthly payments to Hans’ family back in the old country to run a beat-down store in the part of town where none of the kids could really afford to play hockey.

“The store’s okay. I haven’t even taken any of his stuff off the walls, you know? I thought I would change all these things when I bought it, but I don’t know how to start.” Charlie thought of his drawer with newspaper clippings, ready to go up, but every time he reached for something already hanging, he couldn’t bring himself to take it down. He hated to erase someone’s history. Someday someone might walk in, looking for inspiration in a past self, and he hated to be responsible for denying them that.

Adam tilted his head. “I get it. It’s practically a historical site. Hans had stuff dating back to the 60s on those walls.”

“And us.” Charlie hurried on hastily when Adam’s eyes widened a fraction. “All of us, I mean. The D5 Ducks.”

“The Mighty Ducks.” Adam took a sip of his water. “Best team I ever played on.”

Charlie snorted, even though a small hollow in his heart opened, hesitantly, hopefully. “You’re a professional hockey player, dude. Don’t say that too loud.”

“Hey, I mean it.”

“You’re a Chicago Blackhawk now. Guess you were always meant to be a Hawk.” Charlie tried to make it a joke. He thought he had done a good job in spite of the sandpapery feeling in his mouth until Adam flinched as if he had been slapped.

“It’s getting late,” he said after a pause. “I always go to bed early on game nights. Let me go pay the bill.”

Charlie watched him walk away and wondered what was wrong with them. He wondered whose fault it was. His mind replayed the flicker across Adam’s face when he called him a Hawk and had a sinking, ugly feeling where the blame lay.

He kept replaying the image behind his eyelids all night.

 

\-----------------------

 

Coach Bombay showed up at his hotel room a couple of hours before they were supposed to meet. He pulled Charlie in the second he opened the door, folding him into one of those big, real, sincere hugs. The warmth of it seeped down into Charlie’s bones, made him feel invincible and loved, made him once again an awkward preteen who could believed he could be a hero on ice. Like always, Coach read some part of his kid no one else could, and he didn’t let go until Charlie had been recharged, until the exact moment Charlie no longer needed him.

“Hey there, Charlie. Boy, am I glad you’re here.”

“It’s good to see you.” Charlie looked around at the mess he had made of the hotel room in just one night -- his clothes from yesterday in a haphazard pile by the bathroom door, his bag open on the dresser with stuff spilling out of it -- and grinned sheepishly.

“It’ll be good for Adam that you finally made it out here. He’s been having a tough time since his dad died.” Bombay kicked his shoes off, sat down on the bed, and picked up the remote. He flipped from a random episode of Friends to SportsCenter. “He needs his best friend.”

Charlie’s stomach plummeted. “You know I haven't seen him or really even talked to him in years. I’m not his best friend. Just an old friend.”

Bombay shot him a look now, raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”

“You knew that, Coach.” 

“No, I didn’t.” His face changed from surprised sadness to something harder. He was a bloodhound who had caught his scent. “How many years?”

“Coach, don’t…”

“How many?”

Charlie scrubbed his hands over his face and then shook his head. “Five, okay? It’s been five years.”

Just like that, Coach Bombay’s frown and sympathetic eyes took him back to the party following high school graduation. All of the Ducks had been there, as well as a few other illustrious Eden Hall grads, and all those adults who had gotten them to this moment. Coach O had been front and center, shaking hands with parents and thanking them for the opportunity to know their kids, while Coach Bombay had taken the back wall, practically a parent himself at this point.

They had all made their plans for college. A full team of kids out of District 5 going to college was unheard of and yet here they were. Except for Adam Banks. His draft-eligibility hadn’t just been a fun joke in the locker room; it had been a very real possibility, and now it had yielded its fruit: Banksy would be playing pro hockey.

Outside in the backyard, Adam had thrown his arms around Charlie’s shoulders, smiled up at him. His face glowed with this year’s state championship, with the Goodwill Games, with the PeeWee championship, with all the success they had shared together over the years. His eyes begged Charlie to feel it too. 

“Next year, Spazway. Next year it’ll be you and me,” Adam was promising. “We play better on the ice together. Everyone can see that.”

Adam meant every word he was saying. But all Charlie saw was their freshmen year: Banks on Varsity and him on JV. Only this time, Charlie might never make it to the next level.

“Next year, Banksy,” he had agreed.

Charlie never told anyone that he cried into Coach Bombay’s shoulder that night after saying goodbye to Adam.

From the look on Coach’s face now, though, he hadn’t forgotten. Charlie blushed at the adolescent memory, still fresh and familiar. 

“Are you that upset you didn’t get a shot at the pros, Charlie? So upset that you would drop Adam? You of all people know he doesn’t have it easy.”

“We’re not kids anymore. He’s not the kid who got moved to a new team and doesn’t have any friends.” Charlie sat down on the edge of the bed beside Coach. “He doesn’t need me.”

“I’d say he’s still exactly the kid who got moved to a new team. You say you haven’t seen him in five years. Has it been five years since you’ve seen the other Ducks, five years since they’ve seen each other?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Have any of them seen Adam? Before now, with his dad dying?”

“I don’t know,” he said, but it was a lie. _I told Coach Orion you’re the heart of the Ducks._ The only times they had gathered en masse since graduation, it had been at Charlie’s request. When he bought the sports store and held a grand reopening, he had sent Adam an invite, knowing it was during training. He had done it for himself, but in doing it, he had kept Adam from the Ducks he had fought so hard to be part of for so many years. 

Charlie hadn’t seen that.

“How could you do that to him?”

Rage, mostly at himself, bubbled up and burned at his esophagus, ate him up from the inside out.

“Because I was embarrassed.” Charlie hung his head, bit his lower lip against the anger, fought it down. He was too old for an outburst, even if Coach would have forgiven him one. He pressed on through gritted teeth.

“I was embarrassed to have played beside him for years and not have gotten the call up too. I thought I’d just keep my distance a little while, just until I had a plan or my call came and then I’d get a hold of him and tell him I was coming too. By the time I realized I was never getting that call, I was scared to tell him because I didn’t want to find out that he already knew, that he always knew there was no ‘next year.’”

Tears welled up in his eyes, and he swallowed hard, keeping his head down. Those two words still tasted like dreams, still shone like the brown in Adam’s eyes when he promised they weren’t over.

“Sometimes you just wait too long,” Charlie finished.

“You don’t really believe that, Charlie. You’re 23. Hockey doesn’t have to be over for you unless you want it to be. Your friendship with Adam doesn’t have to be over either. He kept saving tickets for you, didn’t he? He kept asking, every year. He never sent me one without saying, ‘There’s a seat for Charlie, too, Coach.’”

Charlie’s eyes stung, but he kept any tears from leaking out. He got up, paced himself a line across the hotel room, and tried not to wonder if Adam had looked up from the ice any of those nights, hoping to see Charlie in that seat. He tried not to wonder just how many ways he had let Adam down. 

“Guess tonight’s a good start,” Charlie said finally.

“As long as we’re not late, yeah, it’s a good start.” Coach Bombay smiled.

 

\--------------------------

 

The game was a real barn burner. Banks blazed over the ice, commanding his position, even with a weak winger to his left, and he was threatening a hat trick before the game was half over. Charlie appreciated that Bombay hadn’t commented on the fact that -- in spite of not having seen Adam in years -- he owned a Chicago Blackhawks Banks jersey. 

“He’s playing well,” Bombay observed. “Give him a couple of years, and he’ll have a C on his jersey.”

Charlie watched him half in the present and half in his memory, his ideas of Banks as a player laying themselves over the sensory intake. Sometimes he would glance up and really see Adam Banks, Chicago Blackhawk, tall, broad, and confident, intense and serious on the ice. Other times he would see his teammate in an Eden Hall Ducks jersey, his face splitting from that sternness into a soul-deep smile after just a little bit of prompting. Charlie had always been able to make Adam smile, even when nobody else could.

When Adam knocked in his third goal of the night, right at the end of the third to seal the win, Charlie watched for him to melt into that big “We did it” grin. In spite of the teammates giving him pounding approval, he had nothing more than a business-like smile.

_Best team I ever played on._

Charlie glanced over at Bombay, two of them calm in the screaming, hooting hordes. Coach’s knowing expression said it all.

“I’ll fix it,” Charlie said.

 

\------------------------------

 

By the time Adam Banks made his way out of the locker room, in an oversized long-sleeved tee shirt and baggy sweatpants, he looked nothing like a star athlete and everything like a college kid dragging his way out of a class he had attended while hungover. Charlie definitely recognized that look from his own college days. Every other player, coach, and journalist had long since passed through this hallway tonight.

Coach Bombay greeted Adam first, and Charlie watched their hug, seeing it from the other side. He knew instinctively that he folded into Coach the same way Adam did, as if Bombay was a lifeline tossed into stormy waters. They had both needed him in ways the other kids hadn’t. Charlies’s problem had been too little dad, and Adam’s problem had been too much.

“I’ll be there if you make the playoffs. If not, you could come see me sometime. Save me some miles.”

“I could do that. Thanks for coming, Coach.”

“Anytime, Adam.” They bumped closed fists against one another’s shoulders, a moment of restraint from another hug, and then Coach turned to give Charlie his goodbye. Charlie didn’t even hear what he mumbled agreement to -- probably a visit soon -- but then Coach was gone and the former best friends were standing across from each other again, all the tension back as if they needed to keep retreading the same steps and yet still could not get back to where they began.

“You’re taking an extra touch to make up for your left wing. Without him, you’d have had four tonight,” Charlie said.

“It’s not published in the pages, but he’s recovering from a shoulder injury,” Adam said. “Three goals wasn’t enough for you?”

“From Banksy?” Charlie half-smiled. “Nah. You’re a Duck. I expect nothing but goals every time you touch the ice.”

“Hey, I play two-way hockey.” They both grinned at the memory of brusque Coach O. Charlie recognized this moment as a crossroads; he could ride their grins into a simple social interaction, or he could do the right thing and really talk to him.

“You got a few minutes before wheels up?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a few.” Adam looked at the locker room door and pointed. “Locker room benches still make pretty good places to talk.”

They walked in, and Charlie looked around, not surprised to see that the Chicago Blackhawks’ locker room smelled like body odor and had a few random discarded sweaty socks on the floor. Hockey players are hockey players, no matter the level. Off the ice, Adam had never enjoyed being the leader, and he hesitantly led the way to one of the benches. He sat down first, angled his body straight ahead. Charlie sat down close and angled his body toward Adam’s, swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry.” He blurted it out.

Adam opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it again, stiffened. Charlie pressed on.

“I’ve been a dick and ruined everything.”

“What?” Adam didn’t sound confused in spite of the the question. Charlie considered how to explain, but his brain carried him off instead, sailed him back to the night of the first state championship they had won in high school. Charlie and Adam had chosen to ride the bus back to school rather than leave with family members. Charlie had known that Adam just wanted some time to process the victory on his own, without his dad rehashing the plays and talking technique. Charlie had just wanted to be with Adam. 

On the dark bus, after midnight, with Coach O asleep in the front, Charlie and Adam shared a seat and talked about running away, spinning out increasingly complex fictional tales of getting to play hockey all the time, not worrying about education or bills or anything except the puck on ice.

“How’re we going to make sure we end up on the same team?” Adam had asked, unable to fully abandon reality even in his imagination.

“Who’s going to want you without me?” Charlie had teased.

“You’re right.” Adam had thrown his arm over the back of the bus seat, across Charlie’s shoulders. “They’ll take us together. Conway and Banks.”

“Banks and Conway,” Charlie had corrected. He remembered leaning back into Adam’s arm, closing his eyes, and feeling like his whole life had been set. 

Except it hadn’t been. There had been no Banks and Conway at the next level.

Charlie tried to put his thoughts into words now. “I messed it up. We were supposed to be a team, you and me. Maybe not forever, but for a lot longer than I made it. I wasn’t good enough to move to the next level.”

Adam froze. His chin lifted, his neck tightening to a ramrod. Then he flared angry.

“You stopped talking to me because you didn’t get drafted?” 

“I wasn’t jealous. I was--” Charlie began, but Adam cut him off.

“You let hockey come between us?”

“We were supposed to go pro.”

“I’ve spent years wondering what I did wrong, trying to figure out what mistake I made, what I did that was so bad that I lost my best friend, and you’re telling me it was just because of hockey?” Adam’s voice shook.

“I screwed up our plan. I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain. I wasn’t good enough to get drafted, and it really was the end of the Ducks, and I was mad and embarrassed I messed it all up, so I kept messing it up...” Charlie said.

“I’ve been trying for years to fix something that wasn’t even actually broken…” Adam said.

They stopped tripping over one another, their voices melting into silence, each one letting the other’s words seep in to be processed. Quiet rested between them for long seconds, Charlie waiting for a sign the door between them could reopen.

“God, Conway, you really are a spaz.” Adam finally breathed out, his voice softening. Relief spilled out of Charlie’s guts and flowed through his body, strengthening him all over. “You almost messed up the best thing either of us ever had.”

“Yeah. And now I’m not just apologizing, I’m asking for your help.” He met Adam’s expectant gaze, nearly smiled at the forgiveness in those brown eyes. “I still want to try to make a minor team, maybe go pro. I’m not ready to give up on Banks and Conway.”

“Conway and Banks,” Adam corrected. He reached over and put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. The warm, solid weight of it filled Charlie with possibility.

 

\-----------------------------

 

Playoffs came and went without a satisfying conclusion for the Blackhawks, but Adam came back home to Minneapolis, and Charlie recognized his own life for the first time in years. What had been black and white became color once more. Adam showed up with a duffel bag and a shy smile, never asking if he could stay. Charlie liked that he just knew. 

They spent their days hauling crap around the shop, somehow finding the needed wall space for those clippings from the drawer. Charlie didn’t miss the way Adam’s eyes softened, dampened at the sight of his own name in the pile.

They spent afternoons at the rink, playing soft, emphasizing the technical over power or posturing. It amazed Charlie how sore he could be from working through such nitpicky elements of the game, how unrelenting Adam could still be over something as slight as the angle of the stick on a particular shot. Sometimes he could hear Mr. Banks in the phrasing coming from Adam’s mouth. In those moments, Charlie found something smartass to say and started up some ridiculous game. He could get Adam chasing him around the rink in a matter of minutes, melt his seriousness into fun.

“We don’t practice. We play or play around,” Charlie teased as he tossed a handful of plastic Easter Eggs on the ice to hit around.

Charlie’s happiness, so unmarred, so easy, so unremarkable, hardly occurred to him. He simply lived it.

One bitter cold afternoon, out on the pond nearest the shop, they skated on bumpy, imperfect ice, shooting into trashcans, until a trio of local kids showed up. In proud District 5 tradition, they were known to hang around the shop on Saturdays, though they hadn’t been brave enough to do so since the Chicago Blackhawks’ starting center had been around.

They skated out onto the ice, the de facto leader, Jake, taking the lead. Bart and Checkers, a kid who had always reminded Charlie of Averman, moved right behind him.

“Hey Charlie,” Jake said, shy smile revealing his shiny braces. “Can we skate too?”

“Absolutely. If you’ll let us play with you.” Charlie shared a knowing look with Adam, couldn’t resist teasing. “Guys, I want you to meet someone. Adam Banks. He’s played for a few pretty good hockey teams. You know, like the…” He paused, letting their anticipation become certainty. “Eden Hall Warriors.”

“And the Blackhawks,” Jake said, taking the bait, so stunned by being in a pro’s presence that he thought Charlie might actually have forgotten Adam’s current playing contract.

“And the Ducks,” Checkers added. All three of them had eyes shiny with awe, and Charlie enjoyed the heck out of watching Adam try to navigate hero worship up close, on his home turf. They got a game going, Adam and Jake against Charlie, Checkers, and Bart, no goalies, and after a few minutes, the disparities melted away. They just became a group of people having fun.

Afterwards, with the kids gone and the three blocks back to the shop already trudged, Charlie started a fire in the back room’s fireplace and tossed himself onto the couch beside Adam.

“That was fun,” Charlie announced, just to make sure Adam recognized it when he had it.

“You’re back up to fighting speed,” Adam said. “You’re better than you think.”

“You’re biased.”

“I am,” Adam admitted. “But it’s true too.”

“Maybe.”

Admitting that he felt it too seemed too risky, made it too real, but he did. On the ice, his steps felt surer, his shots cleaner, his vision recalibrated. When Adam deked, Charlie saw where he was going, not where he was, and he could defend it. There was no doubt he had an unfair advantage, no doubt he knew Adam better as a player than anybody else out there, but he knew the advantage was also the disadvantage, for Adam knew him just as well. 

He couldn’t help hoping that the advantage and the disadvantage neutralized, leaving him with one simple, beautiful reality: he could hold his own against Chicago Blackhawk, Adam Banks.

Hockey might not be over for him. 

“Those kids are lucky to have you.” Adam released the words gently, easily, the natural flow of their conversation returned. After a pause, he continued, “I wouldn’t want to be ten again.”

“Me either.” Charlie remembered the awkwardness, elbows too pointy, feet too big, movements too clumsy. “I sucked at hockey, and I wanted Coach Bombay to be my dad.”

Adam chuckled, but his voice held no affection. “Coach Reilly was my dad, basically.” 

“‘You’re going to go all the way, son,’” Charlie mimicked, as he had done a hundred times before, all through their friendship, and immediately regretted it. Mr. Banks and Coach Reilly had both barked the words the same way, but threat had lurked beneath their shiny veneer. Charlie had always thought it odd that relatively intelligent men grew senseless in the face of sports, as if the “dads” in Adam’s life had believed they could bully him into greatness. Now, though, with Mr. Banks gone, it felt wrong to tease about his mistakes.

“That’s not right, man. My dad’s dead,” Adam said lightly, trying to boost a lead balloon upward with both hands.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Adam walked over to the mini-fridge in the corner and grabbed two bottles of water. He tossed one to Charlie but stayed where he was standing.

“I miss him.”

“You know he was proud of you.”

“At least he got to see me go all the way.” 

Charlie felt the tears rather than heard them, somehow got to his feet before Adam’s face could crumple, before Adam could turn away and pretend his sadness was a manageable size. Instead Charlie walked over to him and reached out with a tentative hand. His hand asked permission to comfort a friend.

Adam lurched into him, an inch taller than Charlie but made smaller by his grief, and Charlie grabbed tight. Sinking his fingers into Adam’s shoulders, pressing against him, seemed right. An apology in physical form. An apology not just for Mr. Banks dying but for all the things for which Charlie still felt he owed Adam an apology. An apology for leaving, an apology Mr. Banks couldn’t give.

“He loved you. It wouldn’t have mattered if you hadn’t gone all the way.” Charlie’s voice was a whisper. “He loved you no matter what.”

He felt Adam nod against his shoulder.

 

\--------------------------------

 

Reality always creeps back, one X on the calendar at a time. Adam needed to go home. Charlie could not help but find the idea ridiculous -- Minneapolis was Adam’s home, always had been -- but Chicago called and wanted their beloved son back. Preseason training began in two days. Charlie packed bulk orders in the store, wrestling long strips of mailing tape over cardboard, and tried not to think about it.

The front bell dinged, and Adam busted through it, his body entering as the door still swung open. He hummed with energy, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, the line of his mouth uncharacteristically tense. Charlie unconsciously emptied his hands of packing supplies. He readied himself for the something in the air. It swelled around him, written on Adam’s face, and yet Charlie couldn’t read it. Not yet.

“I’ve got to talk to you.” The words rushed out, air jettisoned from a balloon squeezed too hard. 

“Okay,” Charlie said. He stepped slowly out from around the counter.

“Before you go try out for the minors and make it.”

“I might not make it.” Charlie glanced back at the bus ticket on the desk behind the counter, visible in its envelope, a small beacon of hope.

“Before you make it,” Adam repeated, “and I can’t say anything for five years because I don’t want you to think it has anything to do with hockey.”

He stepped forward, his eyes intent on Charlie’s. “I thought you wouldn’t see me anymore after graduation because you figured out I was in love with you.”

They stared at one another, throats bobbling with swallowed thoughts, nothing fully-formed enough to be loosed into the air. Charlie played the words over in his head, stared at Adam, tried to match this idea to his experiences. 

“You were?”

Charlie recognized the stupidity of the question, the wrongness of it, but it slipped from his grasp anyway. 

Adam nodded.

Charlie let the new filter color his memories, and suddenly, he realized its presence changed nothing. He saw a team of hockey players, their joy a physical presence on the ice with them as they laughed, cheered, hugged, jumped. Then he watched two boys, newly minted champions, find each other through the raucous celebration, last, always last, because once they found one another, they never let go. He watched their long hug, unable to hear the forgotten words whispered between them. He watched them go to the locker room, the bus, home without ever leaving each other’s side, a set of two in a team of twelve.

He watched those same two boys dream of the future, plan together every step of their journey, choose boarding over staying at home just to be roommates for three years of high school. Those two boys never picked a date over their friendship, never let a girl come between them, barely even let girls into their world at all. He watched them choose to touch each other in a hundred ways, casually, easily, thoughtlessly: a shared bed after a night of drinking, swapped jerseys for an early morning on the ice, knees touching under the table as they studied together.

He watched those boys become men who after five years apart could still share a bathroom sink without argument or embarrassment, men who could throw an arm over the back of the couch and not care if it meant watching a whole game with it over the other’s shoulders.

And then Charlie watched himself cry onto Coach Bombay’s shoulder, eighteen years old and seeing Adam leave. He saw himself for what he had been: a boy whose heart had been broken. He recognized now the knowing look in Coach Bombay’s eyes then and again as they talked in a hotel room in Chicago five years later.

“You didn’t come just to make your big confession and then leave, did you?” Charlie’s own voice buzzed strangely in his ears.

“I don’t know.” 

“Don’t leave.” Charlie took a few steps forward as though he would grab Adam to prevent it. “Whatever you do, don’t leave.”

“I just told you I’m in love with you, Conway.” Adam half-laughed, a little bitterness burnt around his edges. “I can’t just stay and pretend I didn’t.”

Charlie didn’t think it was the right time to point out Adam’s tense switch from past to present. He wondered which one of them had stepped forward again, how they had ended up so close together.

“We’ll figure this out. Just like we figured out the hockey thing. We’ll figure it out.” He moved forward again. Adam started to shake his head, and Charlie cut him off. “I’ll keep screwing up, Banksy. I’ve been doing it as long as you’ve known me. I didn’t know that’s what this--” He motioned between them. “--is, but I don’t care what the word is. I’ve spent all of my life that matters trying to get to a specific future with you, and I’ve been miserable without you and happy with you. Don’t leave. We can figure the rest out from there.”

For once, Adam reached out first, stuck out his hand. “Don’t leave,” he repeated as if saying the words made them clear. “Deal.”

Charlie did not mock him. He folded his hand into Adam’s and nodded. “Deal.”

They pulled the handshake into a hug, and Charlie marveled that it felt no different than any other time. The hug meant what it always had.

“Is this just because you know I’m going to make the minors and then go pro and be a hotshot hockey player?” Charlie asked into Adam’s ear. Adam rewarded him with a laugh that vibrated through both of their chests.

“I’m just trying to get in on the ground floor to cash in on Conway and Banks.”

“Banks and Conway,” Charlie corrected, and it sounded an awful lot like _I love you_.

They stood in the middle of Hans’ store and didn’t let go for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> I know very little about hockey. This fic is what happens when you rewatch your beloved _Mighty Ducks_ trilogy while teaching John Knowles' _A Separate Peace_. Those prep school boys too foolish to realize they're in love have a special place in my heart.
> 
> For anyone curious, I was also inspired by Jimmy Eat World's song "Work."


End file.
